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The Economics of Triad Forest Zoning 1973

Abstract:
Because of its vast forest resources, Canadian and U.S. forest policy through much of the
20th Century addressed environmental concerns by enlarging the area of forestland set
aside as parks and wilderness area, and managing remaining forestland for multiple uses
(integrated management). Inevitably demand for environmental services from forest—

—ecosystems came into conflict with the ability of forests to supply society’s wood fiber
needs. Towards the end of the 1900s, it was apparent that the production possibilities
frontier had been reached, even in Canada where the forest resources seemed endless in
their bounty. As a result, policymakers need to design better governance structures for
dealing with conflicts among competing uses, or find ways to increase production
possibilities – to harvest more from less land. One suggestion is to reallocate existing
forestland that is currently under integrated management (and increased pressure) into
three zones: an ecological reserve (in addition to existing reserves such as parks) and an
intensive timber production zone are to be created, with remaining land to continue to be
managed for multiple uses (integrated management). This is known as Triad zoning.
By relaxing environmental regulations and intensifying silviculture in special zones
dedicated to timber production, Triad forest zoning could potentially be a mechanism for
pushing out the forest possibilities frontier – for increasing wood fiber supply and
environmental services simultaneously. In this study, therefore, timber supply and
provision of environmental amenities under traditional integrated forest management are
compared with what they would be under a Triad zoning scheme. A bioeconomic model
is developed and solved as a mixed-integer linear program. Sensitivity analysis is used to
investigate the conditions under which the Triad regime can offset the impact on timber
production from increased environmental demands. Using data from the central Coast of
The Economics of Triad Forest Zoning 1British Columbia, the results indicate that higher environmental demands may be
satisfied under the Triad regime without increasing the financial burdens on the industry
or reducing its wood supply. This occurs, however, only if regulatory constraints in
timber production zone are sufficiently lax, an outcome that may not be acceptable.